T.C. McCarthy's 'Germline' wins Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award

The Baltimore Science Fiction Society announced on Friday that the novel “Germline” by T.C. McCarthy has won the 2012 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award. This award is given annually to recognize the best first science fiction, fantasy or horror novel of the year as selected by the membership of the BSFS.

The Compton Cook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award has been awarded annually since 1983 and is given each year at the Balticon SM convention. The Compton Cook/Stephen Tall Award is sometimes called “The Compton Cook Award” because Stephen Tall was the pen name of Baltimore science fiction author Compton Cook, who died in 1981.

1983 – “Courtship Rite” by Donald Kingsbury
1984 – “War For Eternity” by Christopher Rowley
1985 – “Emergence” by David R. Palmer
1986 – “Infinity’s Web” by Sheila Finch
1987 – “Doomsday Effect” by Thomas Wren

1988 – “Liege-Killer” by Christopher Hinz
1989 – “Sheepfarmer’s Daughter” by Elizabeth Moon
1990 – “The Shining Falcon” by Josepha Sherman
1991 – “In the Country of the Blind” by Michael Flynn
1992 – “Reefsong” by Carol Severance

1993 – “Fire in the Mist” by Holly Lisle
1994 – “The Drylands” by Mary Rosenblum
1995 – “Dun Lady’s Jess” by Doranna Durgin
1996 – “The Gatekeepers” by Daniel Graham Jr.
1997 – “Celestial Matters” by Richard Garfinkle

1998 – “The Merro Tree” by Katie Waitman
1999 – “The High House” by James Stoddard
2000 – “Flesh and Silver” by Stephen L. Burns
2001 – “Murphy’s Gambit” by Syne Mitchell
2002 – “Alien Taste” by Wen Spencer

2003 – “Devlin’s Luck” by Patricia Bray
2004 – “Way of the Wolf” by E.E. Knight
2005 – “Ghosts in the Snow” by Tamara Siler Jones
2006 – “Poison Study” by Maria V. Snyder
2007 – “His Majesty’s Dragon” by Naomi Novik

2008 – “One Jump Ahead” by Mark L. Van Name
2009 – “Singularity’s Ring” by Paul Melko
2010 – “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi
2011 – “State of Decay” by James Knapp
2012 – “Germline” by T.C. McCarthy

Crook, who was a native of Tennessee, only wrote three books, but he wrote a number of noteworthy short stories. His books include “The Stardust Voyages” (1975), “The Ramsgate Paradox” (1976) and “The People Beyond the Wall” (1980). His most famous short story was “The Bear with the Knot on His Tail,” which was nominated for a Hugo Award in the short fiction category in 1972. (He lost to “Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven.)

For more information about the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Awards, visit www.bsfs.org/bsfsccw.htm. For more information about T.C. McCarthy, visit his Web site at http://www.tcmccarthy.com/index.html.

In the end, how many of the books mentioned above have you had the chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend and why? Which book above do you think is the best Compton Cook/Stephen Tall award winner of all time? Let us know in the comments section below.